The Age of Innocence eBook

Archer had been wont to smile at these annual vaticinations
of his mother’s; but this year even he was obliged
to acknowledge, as he listened to an enumeration of
the changes, that the “trend” was visible.

“The extravagance in dress—­”
Miss Jackson began. “Sillerton took me
to the first night of the Opera, and I can only tell
you that Jane Merry’s dress was the only one
I recognised from last year; and even that had had
the front panel changed. Yet I know she got it
out from Worth only two years ago, because my seamstress
always goes in to make over her Paris dresses before
she wears them.”

“Ah, Jane Merry is one of us,” said
Mrs. Archer sighing, as if it were not such an enviable
thing to be in an age when ladies were beginning to
flaunt abroad their Paris dresses as soon as they
were out of the Custom House, instead of letting them
mellow under lock and key, in the manner of Mrs. Archer’s
contemporaries.

“Yes; she’s one of the few. In my
youth,” Miss Jackson rejoined, “it was
considered vulgar to dress in the newest fashions;
and Amy Sillerton has always told me that in Boston
the rule was to put away one’s Paris dresses
for two years. Old Mrs. Baxter Pennilow, who
did everything handsomely, used to import twelve a
year, two velvet, two satin, two silk, and the other
six of poplin and the finest cashmere. It was
a standing order, and as she was ill for two years
before she died they found forty-eight Worth dresses
that had never been taken out of tissue paper; and
when the girls left off their mourning they were able
to wear the first lot at the Symphony concerts without
looking in advance of the fashion.”

“Ah, well, Boston is more conservative than
New York; but I always think it’s a safe rule
for a lady to lay aside her French dresses for one
season,” Mrs. Archer conceded.

“It was Beaufort who started the new fashion
by making his wife clap her new clothes on her back
as soon as they arrived: I must say at times
it takes all Regina’s distinction not to look
like . . . like . . .” Miss Jackson glanced
around the table, caught Janey’s bulging gaze,
and took refuge in an unintelligible murmur.

“Like her rivals,” said Mr. Sillerton
Jackson, with the air of producing an epigram.

“Oh,—­” the ladies murmured;
and Mrs. Archer added, partly to distract her daughter’s
attention from forbidden topics: “Poor
Regina! Her Thanksgiving hasn’t been a
very cheerful one, I’m afraid. Have you
heard the rumours about Beaufort’s speculations,
Sillerton?”

Mr. Jackson nodded carelessly. Every one had
heard the rumours in question, and he scorned to confirm
a tale that was already common property.